We are back!

Okay, yes, we are back. And no, we are not happy about it. It is all over and returning to reality is like a huge slap in the face and, as you can probably well imagine, we both feel very flat. What will we do you ask? Probably plan the next adventure.

In the meantime, however, owing to a very rushed last few weeks with close to non-existent internet access, we still have updates, stories and blogs to publish from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Hawaii and San Francisco.

So don't desert us just yet. You can pretend we are still away. We will.

We Come in Peace

And there we appeared like monsters from the deep…

 

Swimmers in Australia are constantly advised to be on the lookout for jellyfish and to take precautions wherever possible by wearing stinger suits. So that’s what these are. We don’t usually go out of our way to look and feel completely moronic but, since we were given them to wear in the Whitsunday Islands, who were we to dispute whether or not we needed them? We didn’t see any stingers but we had a good time fooling around in them...

Polar Bear with a Cleft Palate

Tell me you see this too!

Can ya guess what it is yet?

Kangaroo Poo

It's Kangaroo Poo! Well I thought it was funny.

Would-be Roadkill

Driving in the outback is quite an experience, owing to the arid desert terrain and very little in the way of civilisation for many a country mile. The scenery in itself is something we hadn’t experienced before anywhere, such is its uniqueness. Whatever lives and survives in this environment needs to do so with little in the way of moisture for weeks on end. Surprisingly, it is usually the road which kills the animals, not the environment and, because the land is so vast, you don’t see many other than those dead at the side of the road.  For this reason, it is not a good idea to drive at night and is something you are advised against seeing that cattle, camels (see Road Train blog) and marsupials are likely to write off your car before you can say kangaroo poo, not to mention seriously endanger your life in the process. Since we didn’t leave Alice Springs until 3pm and the journey takes around four and a half hours, we knew we’d have to stop the night en route. But before we got to the only campsite outside of Ayers Rock Resort, however, we found ourselves driving in darkness listening to abo.fm with only the power of our headlights to guide us. We knew we were taking a risk so seeing a live dingo by the side of the road, oblivious to the danger he presented to himself and us, was an obvious and glaring reminder to be careful. A few kilometres further down the road, a second glance exposed a huge, living, barn door-sized slab of prime steak standing directly across our lane, staring us down with one eye-brow raised in contempt like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Now, I have no idea if the damned creature was asleep or not. Why else would any being wander into the road like that and stand there like they were invincible? In fact, while we’re on the subject, apparently it is possible to push over a cow while it snoozes given that they sleep on their feet. So perhaps if I’d have nudged him as I came to a stop, while squeezing the last pound of pressure from my brakes, he would have toppled. Who knows? It may be a myth, but I reason that since Beavis and Butthead did it in one of their many juvenile but hilarious episodes, it must be true. Anyway, luckily the cow was just outside the breaking distance for our speed, otherwise he would have been seriously tenderised or, more than likely, us. As soon as we stopped with nothing more than a metre or so to spare he looked at us nonchalantly and trotted off the road and into the darkness. I think if he could he would have flipped us the bird upon leaving. Pretty scary stuff, especially since the hire vehicle we had picked up only a few hours before was held by a 2000 pound insurance bond on my credit card and we were liable for any damage. Thankfully, we reached the campsite soon after this incident and to our knowledge we had no other occurrences to report on the way.

Road Train

We became aware very quickly of Road Trains during our journey deep into the outback on the way to Ayers Rock from Alice Springs. These immense machines intimidatingly bear down on you from the other direction, making your vehicle look tiny even from a distance as the heat rising off the tarmac does so in waves like transparent flames. You can almost imagine them being from a sci-fi movie where the windscreen is a strip no wider than a ruler against the size of the body, obscuring the view of the driver and making it seem driverless. As big as these non-conformist mavericks are, it is the thick metal bull bars surrounding the front end that increase their menacing look. Essential in their role, they protect the truck and driver from animals dumb enough to get in their way, especially cows, which can weigh in excess of a ton. We saw huge cows, obvious victims of an acceptable hit-and-run, lying dead in ditches at the side of the road after being hit by one of these powerhouses. One can only imagine the force on impact.

Road Trains are a trucking concept used in remote areas of Argentina, Australia, Mexico the United States and Canada to move freight efficiently, although the term ‘Road Train’ is most often used in Australia. Australian Kurt Johansson is recognised as the inventor of the modern road train, but it was the Government of South Australia in the 1930s who started the trend of progression by operating a fleet of military trucks to transport freight and supplies into the Northern Territory, replacing the Afghan Camel Trains trains that had been trekking through the deserts since the late 19th century. Incidentally, camels were originally brought to Australia for their suitability in the desert conditions of the outback where they can last for weeks with no water and can shift up to ten times their own bodyweight for considerable distances. Once machinery began to replace them, owners released the camels into the wild, creating numbers of free-ranging herds. Today it is estimated that there are 500,000 feral camels roaming free in the outback causing havoc to the eco-system as they munch their way through the vegetation. It is comforting to know that Australia still harbours some affection for the odd creatures by keeping some in farms, sanctuaries and zoos while others get to star in annual camel races. Now that’s something I bet you didn’t realise about Australia. Neither did we. Seeing them in herds at the side of the road as you drive by is a bizarre sight, I can tell you.

Anyway, back to the real subject matter of this blog. Road trains transport all manner of materials but common examples are, unsurprisingly, livestock, fuel, mineral ores and general freight. Their cost-effective transport has played a significant part in the economic development of remote areas and some communities are totally reliant on regular service. Today, Australia operates the largest and heaviest road-legal vehicles in the world, with some configurations topping out at close to 200 tonnes. As you can imagine, strict regulations regarding licensing, registration, weights and experience apply to all operators of road trains throughout Australia. Looking at the picture diagram you can see that some of them go on more than David Cameron at Question Time. K represents the largest road trains operating in Australia and, therefore, the world. Sadly we never saw one of these colossal machines. Called a "Powertrain" or a "Body and six", these machines operate at The Granites Gold Mine in the western Northern Territory – a state for which we sadly did not have enough time to explore.

Retired Texan Rockstars

While we were at Lake Wannaka, New Zealand, we found a campsite in which to chill out for a couple of days. It was quiet until the vacant spaces around us were abruptly filled by a convoy of Americans in identical campervans, otherwise known as a tour group. It wasn’t long until we met our neighbours, a lovely retired couple from Texas with a drawl so typical it made us feel like we were in an episode of Dallas. The only thing that would have topped it off for us is if Don, a cotton farmer by trade, sported cowboy boots and a Stetson but, sadly, he didn't  adhere to the streotype. We talked for some time until we realised the campervan they had hired, which was significantly bigger and more luxurious than ours, was actually like a shoebox in comparison to the one they own at home. Judy fetched a business card from her purse complete with an image of themselves on the back and a picture of their mobile home, or ‘RV’, on the front. It was only when Judy spoke again that our astounded expression was interrupted. Jon Bon Jovi be proud to call it his tour bus since it contains four flat-screen TVs and tows a full-size Hummer behind. In fact, Judy also revealed that they often pull-up to their house after being on the road exploring America’s vast continent and don’t actually go in, preferring to stay in the RV. I can only wonder what their house is like. It must be a real shithole.

Last fuel for...ever!

Running out of fuel in Australia, in the middle of nowhere, is no joke. However, as prepared as we thought we were for that eventuality, we still cut it close thanks to the vastness of the part of the country through which we were driving. We were on our way north up the east coast from Rockhampton to Airlie Beach, which is the base for touring the Whitsundays, and was around 500 km. It doesn’t sound a lot considering the size of Australia but for long stretches along the highway, there are no service stations and it is easy to get caught out. So we had to stop at a place called St Lawrence, a kind of place where tumbleweed blows across the road, animal carcasses decay in the heat, and locals get thrown out of the watering hole into the dust of the high street for having one too many. We had no choice but fill up at the only petrol pump in town, which, due to a missing cover, presented its oily mechanism in full glory. It still had one of those rickety, old manual ticker displays, the kind that makes you question its accuracy. Once I had pumped enough over-priced small-town fuel to get us to the next big town, I entered the store and awarded a twenty dollar bill to a large woman wearing a pair of thick-rimmed bins and behind which was a cross-eye so bad that it made me wonder if she could see round corners. It was the kind of store that receives a delivery once a month and out-of-date newspapers and magazines sit on the shelves amassing layers of dust and the refrigerated, processed food has long accepted its fate and given up being presentable. In the background leaning against a door frame was a weedy-looking man, in his mid-twenties sporting a wife-beater ribbed vest adorned with grease stains and looking on intimidatingly while a cocktail stick protruded from his mouth. I surmised that it must be her husband given that they were of a similar age, and couldn’t help but wonder if they were also related. If I had stood there for any length of time and pondered what went on behind the sparse dust-ridden shelves of the shop, my imagination took me to a place that envisaged this same guy carving a human body into pieces to put into the freezer while his gimp sat chained and terrified in the woodshed out back. Luckily, since I had told her to keep the change, I didn’t have to wait around for this image to fully reveal itself.

 

On the way out of town, the local radio station embodied such a place by giving out information on the regional beef expo and rattled out sheep scores in favour of football results. We had escaped and I got the feeling we should consider ourselves lucky. It was like Hotel California. And how was your day?

Aussie Dumb-down

The English language continually evolves to the point where every year new, arguably stupid, made-up words borne from popular culture make it into the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Call me a traditionalist but I like the English language and its origins, and there’s nothing worse than being in a country that butchers and bastardises it as often as Australians do. Ask anyone where you might be able to fill up with fuel and you will be directed to the nearest ‘servo’ (service station). Or perhaps you might want to recycle some old clothes at a recognised charity known here as the ‘Salvos’ (Salvation Army). After you’ve done all this, there may be time in the ‘avo’ (afternoon) to have a quick check of ‘facey’ (facebook) before picking up the kids from ‘Kindi’ (kindergarten). Now this is not just, as you might imagine, people on the street using this lazy shortening of words during convos, sorry, conversations. Believe it or not, they are constantly used this way on the radio and even during news bulletins, which only serves to perpetuate the dumbing down of the language. Post-news, the weather report on the radio says that it is fine in ‘Brizzy’ (Brisbane). I cannot help but shake my head when listening to Aussies speak and assume that none of them ever finished high school, but what really topped it off was having the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (whom incidentally I can’t help thinking looks like Jodie Foster), take part in a very informal telephone interview on the radio concerning the budget, which was announced the previous day. At the conclusion of the interview she introduced a song by the Arctic Monkeys. Can you imagine David Cameron doing that, despite his embarrassing ‘hug a hoodie’ episode a few years back in a desperate ploy to win votes? While some may think it’s great to have a PM down-to-earth enough to do that, to me it lacked professionalism and didn’t do much for her credibility. Drongo.

 

Having written all this, the Aussies can be credited with inventing such uniquely sounding words as bonza, drongo and ute (utility vehicle), despite the fact that we haven’t actually heard anyone use them here. They probably remain more steadfastly in Aussie folklore than anywhere else. Talking of words though, the oft used one-liner usually thrown around in ones best Australian accent, ‘throw another shrimp on the barby’ is another one of those quotes that has perpetuated the Australian stereotype. A request by Paul Hogan in character as Mick Dundee (yes, the coolest Aussie on the planet) in the film Crocodile Dundee, it is a testament to how damaging Hollywood can be in typecasting a nationality. According to a guy we met here, Australians don’t actually call them shrimps. And they never put them on a barbecue. In the same conversation, another myth was blown away in that very few Aussies drink Fosters. In fact, very few people anywhere drink Fosters that I know of, apart from Helen’s dad who, fittingly called Mick, surely must be an honorary Aussie as he single-handedly maintains sales figures of the stuff. Anyway, there was me thinking the Amber Nectar seeped from trees out in the bush. Clever marketing either way I’d say. Bonza!